At Mudville Gazette. A story within talks about the actions in Vietnam that lead to the movie "We were soldiers", based on the book of a similiar name *We were soldiers once...and young* by Moore and Galloway (Joe Galloway, the famous war correspondant). I ordered the book off Amazon and look forward to reading it.

Anyway, god bless our troops. Every time i see a serviceman, i feel like, but never do, say 'thank you for risking your life to defend us, to do what other citzens will or can not.'. Maybe someday i'll find the courage.

CNN has a 'Coming home' section. I am increasingly critical of the reports coming out of CNN particularly for their anti-everything tone, the 'we support the troops but not the war', the 'X soldier did this bad thing and this is a terrible war and all bush's fault', etc. In war, bad things happen. Abu Gharab is one thing, the recent alleged massacre of Iraq civilians in Haditha is another. But we deal with a enemy who ROUTINELY kills women and children because they gather to receive candy or go to school or whatever. Who routinely butcher and execute their fellow Iraqis for the crime of wanting a better life. Our soldiers aren't angels and make mistakes, but we investigate, and we demand accountability. This sets coalition soldiers apart from the 'insurgents' that Iraqis and coalition forces continue to fight.

Some of them are up. One has me in it.

"Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics." , If slow-motion machine-gun fire or noise in outer space has ever bothered you, this is your site. "The Core" earns special honors.

From CNN

On a related note. Heh.

I'm all for that; it's safe, available, and doesn't produce greenhouse gas. It's very expensive though, but may become cheaper if the oversight is lessened (which Bush promised to do in a speech today). And maybe the modern plants can become more economically efficient; there hasn't been a new plant built since the mid-70s (before computers, you know)

Spine insertion of GOP congresspeople. On Ebay.

So far it looks good. I try not to read/watch too much about movies I want to see, to avoid spoilers. Warning; the above review has an important spoiler (which the author should have warned us about).

A report from Indonesia suggests a strain of H5N1 has been succesfully transmitted human to human.

However, existing strains of H5N1 have been successfully used in vaccine trials. The question is will the govt produce enough of teh vaccines and will they be effective against a human-to-human strain of H5N1?

Well on Foxnews. You know, that rabid right-wing news organization. Anyway there is a great article on milbloggers by, not coincidentally, a milblogger. I think bloggers, especially those in foreign countries, provide critical views of how things are really going, which you don't really hear about in the news (where the bleeding always leads).

Seems to be all the rage. Yesterday i saw a young girl, i guess 10 years old, compete in the regional mini-tri; 300m swim, 2.5 mi run, 10 mi bike (i think). She did better than some adults (who were really out of shape). I dunno how well she did, i was helping the race elsewhere.

Anyway here's a story about a 7 yr old doing the alcatraz swim (1.4 mi).

Stanley Kurtz weighs in (at the Corner) about the of conservatism. I fisk.

I may not be a professor of “symbology,” but I have taught at Harvard and studied religious symbolism.

Translation: I'm a pompous ass from Haaarvaard. Has he published anything in this field? He doesn't say.

So I feel in a particularly strong position to reveal the entirely unsecret conspiracy against patriotism, tradition, and religion hiding in plain sight on our movie and television screens, in our universities, and on the pages of the mainstream press.

Same old song and dance. Everything is politics, and everyone is against us reds.

Conservatives have forgotten just how precarious our position is. One cable news channel, talk radio, and the blogosphere do not an invincible army make.

Oh, wait, we're in charge of the actual army. And the congress. And the judiciary. And the oil companies, and every other big company in America.

It only seems that way because we also have nominal control of the reigns of power. But lose our foothold in government, and conservatives are up a creek. The other side controls the levers of cultural power in this country, and we are the enemy in their eyes (and on their screens).

So, how's that conservative mandate working? Let's see, Iraq is pretty FUBAR, thanks to the admin's lack of a plan and lack of reconstruction.

Iran has or will have nukes, and we don't do anything about that.

Our deficit has soared, and we're in a serious energy crisis, because of shortsidedness and good old fashion congressional greed.

Yeah, they're hurting. My take, vote all the republicans out of power in 06 and 08, and elect real fiscal conservatives. Maybe I'll vote for McCain in 08.

Here are some of them.




The above is Jen and I in austin after the ride.




The above are some of my PCC club friends; this was day one at lunch in bastrop?



This is my friend Brandon, this was at Austin.



Unofficial rest stop during one of the traffic jams early on day 1.

From the WaPo; a translation of multiple saudi textbooks. The hatred and bigotry is shocking; and this is supposedly after they 'cleaned them up' HT: Instapudit

Evil Knevil has it. Actually it's a serious serious disease. Basically the immune system goes haywire and attacks the lungs, causing breakdown and inflammation, and it spreads and spreads until you literally don't have enough lungs to breathe. Then you die. This is what I worked on for my masters. We now understand some genetic predispositions, maybe someday that will work into the clinic.

The fact that humans and chickens have common features including a postanal tail and pharyneal (sp) pouches (ie gills) suggests a common ancestor, which is one of the tenants of Darwinism. I thought this was a cool pict anyway.

Things are going well so far. I finally got those bloody peptides in last week. So far the results are promising and I'm moving towards finishing the expts needed for my manuscript. I am thinking i need more 'functional' expts so i'm working on those too. But unfortunately for whatever reason the cell culture expts are not going so well. A critical cell line manages to get infected every two weeks, and it grows slowly, to boot. Then, various plasmids are not behaving like they should. Anyway, i'll figure out those issues i hope. I'd like to get the paper out in June, but my fear is my old advisor will be difficult (as usual) and demand a boatload of further expts before submission. I have a bit more leverage now though. Its a delicate situation though.

He's a great advisor/mentor I think. Certainly the best i've had. Anyway he has a science blog here (mostly about policy stuff), and a bonsai blog here.

It's also known as atopic dermititis. Anyway the site is here.

I was on the Elidel clincal study; i think i received the drug (there was a placebo control), and my exzema improved during the 6 mo study. So far my eczema is okay, I've been using tacrolimus for a few years and steroids to manage flare spots. Most important thing is 2x daily moisturizer (Cetaphil). Most so called moisterizers don't do a thing for me, but the very high end cream based emoliants have been beneficial for me. Anyway i'm glad this isn't an issue anymore.

Oh, yeah, here. Thanks Bush!

Mike Totten has another facinating article on Arabs living in Isreal. Really makes me want to visit Isreal and the mid-east.

Cool article on the the impact of the net on anime here. Basically the fans upload the anime shows to the net, and the producers look to see who is downloading for a indication of which show is hot. Moreover, fans will dub the show into other languages (english primarily, i would guess), greatly increasing the distribution of the show.

Sounds pretty good but perhaps a bit simplistic. But easy! From Glenn Reynolds.

RECIPEBLOGGING: I had the opportunity to spend the day working at home today (rare lately, with all the appointments committee stuff going on) so I cooked something that takes a little time. It's not much work: you just have to start it earlier. It's somewhere between roasted chicken and coq au vin.

Ingredients: 3 large baking potatoes; 3 sweet potatoes; two large onions; one fryer hen; assorted spices

Preheat an oven to 350. Start with a nice fryer hen, about 3 lbs. Clean and then mist with olive oil. (If the InstaWife isn't around to object that it contains fat, also rub with one tablespoon butter, which doesn't add many calories, but does add a lot of flavor). Sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika (lots), garlic, and a bit of sage. Place in a large, covered roasting pan.

Now chop the onions into quarters, and add to the roasting pan. Slice the potatoes (both kinds) into inch-thick sections and add to the pan as well. (Some peeled baby carrots are nice, too, but the InstaWife is allergic to carrots, so we skip those). Next, in a measuring cup add two ounces each of worcestershire, teriyaki, soy, and whatever wine you have around (I used the last of a bottle of Reynolds Merlot tonight). Pour over the chicken and vegetables, then cover the pan.

Put in the oven for about two hours and go do whatever you want -- you're done cooking. Two hours later, serve the chicken, which will be wonderfully tender and succulent, on a platter. Remove the vegetables and serve separately in a large serving bowl. Total prep time is about 15 minutes, there's not much to clean up, and as a nice side effect, the house smells wonderful when your family gets home.

Sounds like fun. I think i'd enjoy conquering the mountains. But maybe not. It's alot of work.

Sciencecareers has a great article on bad postdoc advisors. So far mine seems pretty good and I think he's the best of the three advisors I've had.

So now they cuddled up with BitTorrent Inc, and will offer another source for downloadable movies.

That ain't going to work. First, they plan to charge a DVD price for downloadable movies. Second, the downloads from bittorrent are slow. Bittorrent is a peer to peer service, basically while I am downloading some part of the movie, i am also uploading it to other people. It's a novel technology to rapidly share large files like movies. Third, since it is a P2P technology, that means we have to pay for the privledge of uploading to other people. Does that sound fair?

If you want to be able to get this content, go to half.com, where you can get just about any DVD for 5 bucks or so. And it's yours, and it's the full thing. Sure you won't have it *right then*, maybe in a week, but whatever.

These ideas are so stupid I wonder who thought of them?

On the other hand, i love the new DVD koisks taht are appearing at local supermarkets. The first movie J&I rented, we held onto for 6 days or so, and was charged $6. Not a good deal, really, but we were lazy. Now we only will rent something on the weekend when we know we will watch it. Last time we were only charged $1. This is the smartest & cheapest way to pay for DVD rentals. And very convenient; I pass the grocery store every day en route to work; takes 5 minutes to drop off the DVD.

The transcript of his talk from the Correspondants dinner is here. Somewhat funny, somewhat inflammatory. He's no Jon Stewart though.

While searching for stuff for mom & I to do I found the visitor bureau has a great site with lots of useful coupons. Ex: two free tix to see the Aeros. Of course their season ended a week ago. But still!

Seems like a fun thing to do. The cost works out if you rent for 4 days. As typical, the rate structure doesn't make alot of sense; $10 per hour, or $40 for a day, or $10/day for 4 days? Huh? I can see myself doing that sort of thing. If only i can get J on a tandem.

Good thing, I think it's a great show. J&I appreciate the medical drama type shows, but this has alot more going for it; every episode is complex but resolved, so there are no loose strings at the end.

So says the AAAS (the american association of the advancement of science, the big science organization in the US). The outlays of grants directly to institutions actually decreases money available for grants for people not at those institutions. Scientists survive on grants from the NIH and NSF; when that funding is cut, scientists leave the field. The problem with pork (one problem) is that's not peer-reviewed, that the grants are given directly to institutions for unclear purposes. Whereas peer-review grants ensuer that good ideas get funded.

This article deals with 'romantic affairs' between students and mentors or senior faculty. A major theme however is something I can relate to; the absolute lack of objective criticism for the thesis/dissertation. I found both my MS and PhD advisors could not care less about my thesis or my career. I was simply cannon fodder to do experiments. No surprise that I'd rather not have anything to do with them (but I still need them for letters of recommendation). It's probably a pretty common occurance. Unless you are a superstar, you can forget about any academic support from your advisor; they just don't care. If you are going to make it in the world, you have to do it yourself, and usually against their wishes, since their wishes often involve things that are detrimental to your career (such as 'you should leave the institution to pursue your PhD' 'you should not continue the project and try to get a paper out of it' etc).

Anyway. I'm trying hard to get my paper published so i can move on to other things.

Houston, like many cities near the Mexican border (and thronging with latino immigrants) felt the pinch of the immigrant boycott. For starts, many mexican restaurants were closed (Houston Chronicle) Also, the taco vans that cruise construction sites didn't go out. And many construction jobs were stopped. Of these, I think the worst thing is the construction. Anyway, can we survive without illegal immigrants? I'd argue yes. We have a huge labor pool, and many unskilled potential workers (ie high school students and those w/ a high school education). Anyway, i didn't feel the crimp, and I can make burritos at home.